[OSGeo-Edu] Peer to Peer University: Community GIS course & Re: [OSGeo-Edu] More on the OSGeo educational webinar idea

Tue Dec 13 16:36:57 EST 2011

Brylie, Charlie,
I think you both have great ideas for marketing Open Source, and I 
suspect that you might both be describing the same, or similar things.

I have a few ideas on how to attract volunteers to create and then 
maintain an extensive range of quality material. (If you are on this 
list, you likely will have heard some of these ideas before, as they are 
based on the principles of the OSGeo-Live project).

I suggest that we discuss the following questions/suggestions on the 
list here, then copy into:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Marketing_Artefacts

The key principle is to increase the marketing Return on Effort for each 
volunteer. You do this by:

1. Clearly define the marketing product. Eg: The OSGeoLive Quickstart is 
a document targeted at new users which should be able to show the key 
features of an application in 5 to 10 minutes. This helps authors get 
over "writer's block" and also leads to consistency and increased quality.

2. Break the product into components, and where possible, ensure that 
the components can be used by multiple distribution channels. Eg: The 
English Quickstart makes use of a Project Logo, and the Project Logo is 
used by the ProjectOverview as well as the Project's web pages. 
Likewise, the English Quickstart is translated into other languages. I'd 
strongly urge people building webinars and training courses to make use 
of the Project Quickstarts.  Eg: It would be great to see someone create 
videos/webinars which are based on a script from the Quickstart.
The bonus here is that we reduce the cost to projects of creating (and 
then more importantly the maintaining) of training material.

So my questions/suggestions:
* Who is the target audience for Peer to Peer University / Webinar?

* How long should it be? (I think a high value for effort opportunity 
would be to create 5 minute webinars for each project, which is based 
upon existing Quickstarts)

* Is the emphasis to be:
1. Describing an Open Source Project and how it solves a set of 
technologies, or
2. Describing a technology (which is serviced by one or more Open Source 
projects which are used for in examples)

* What sub-products can you break your product into? Eg, for a webinar, 
I think you would break it into:
1. Slides
1.1 Screenshots
2. Script, or speaking notes (which could be derived from the Quickstart 
text)

* What format will you store your products in?
1. Wiki?
2. Word/Powerpoint/OpenOffice formats?
3. Video format? What resolution? 1024x768?

* What is the process/tools should you use in creating your products?

If you have read this far, and still want more background reading, here 
are a few places to look:

* 
http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2011/06/memoirs-of-cat-herder-coordinating.html
* 
http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2008/10/creating-geofoss-distribution-pipeline.html
* http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Marketing_Artefacts (and links to 
OSGeo-Live processes)
* http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Marketing_Pipeline

On 6/12/2011 4:58 PM, Brylie Oxley wrote:
> Hi all,
> We are organizing a Community GIS course at the Peer to Peer University.
> http://p2pu.org/en/groups/community-gis/
>
> Would anybody here like to help us develop the course? We can use 
> organizers to assure that the course content is of high quality.
>
> If you would like to help with the course organization, let me know. 
> We will make sure to promote you to a course organizer role.
>
> Thanks for your consideration!
> --Brylie Oxley
> Technology Generalist
> http://gnumedia.org
>
> Course Organizer
> http://p2pu.org
>
> Technology Apprentice
> http://woolman.org
> _______________________________________________
> Edu_discuss mailing list
> Edu_discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/edu_discuss

On 14/12/2011 2:56 AM, Charles Schweik wrote:
> Dear OSGeo colleagues,
>
> Regarding our proposal to start an OSGeo educational webinar. It 
> occurred to me that some on these lists might not fully understand 
> what we are proposing.
>
> First, please check out [1] -- it is a recorded webinar stored on 
> YouTube and example of what we hope to achieve. (This is a webinar put 
> on by Phil Davis' GeoTech center -- Phil is an OSGeo education 
> committee member, and nicely providing the webinar hosting system).
>
> Second, I urge knowledgable representatives from OSGeo software 
> projects to consider working with us to schedule an "Introduction to 
> your technology" webinar. Other webinar ideas are WELCOME. Please add 
> your ideas (and your name, email) to our webinar ideas wiki page [2].
>
> All of these would be recorded and, with permission of the speaker, 
> stored on YouTube and hopefully inventoried in the new educational 
> material repository being hosted by Suchith Anand and his ELOGeo group 
> at the University of Nottingham, UK. See our main OSGeo education page 
> [3].
>
> I do hope some on these lists will step up and help us move this idea 
> forward. This is a great marketing opportunity, especially knowing we 
> can store these on YouTube and in our online searchable database.
>
> Charlie Schweik
> OSGeo Edu committee chair
>
>
> [1] 
> http://www.youtube.com/user/GeospatialTechnology?feature=mhee#p/a/u/0/-vv7OcxATh0 
>
> [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Edu_webinars
> [3] http://www.osgeo.org/education
> _______________________________________________
> Edu_discuss mailing list
> Edu_discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/edu_discuss

-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com

-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com